BCBS posts drop in numbers of insured

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee saw a drop of of 15,743 in commercially-insured members in April, according to data provided by the state’s largest insurer.

The loss of coverage for individuals formerly covered through employer-sponsored insurers represents a fraction of the insurer’s 1.5 million customers. But the data is too early to capture the full extent of health insurance loss and lags behind the historic surge in unemployment since the pandemic.

An analysis  by the Kaiser Family Foundation earlier this month found that up to 417,000 Tennesseans lost jobs with employer-sponsored health insurance in May. Up to 130,000 of those individuals could be eligible for TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program. Most of the remainder — approximately 287,000 people — could be without health insurance entirely as a result of pandemic-related job losses.